ustxtxb_obs_1960_02_19_50_00001-00000_000.pdf

Gentlemanly Politics The one great rule of composition is to speak the truth. THOREA U The Tv An \(A 4\\.\(..—,,,k .\\. ‘ S c , a6Q ej cx iberal Weekly Newspaper We will serve no group or party but will hew hard to the truth as we find it and the right as we see it. server Vol. 51 TEXAS, FEBRUARY 19, 1960 10c per copy No. 46 I COPE Backs Daniel, Wilson Power Fight Over Diablo AUSTIN So far the candidates for state office this year are behaving like English gentlemen bracing themselves for polite discussion of the unpleasant truths. While not, himself, coming forward with the long-range state tax plan he has announced he will announce, gubernatorial candidate Jack Cox has opened his campaign against Gov. Price Daniel over a state network by charging him in effect with fiscal failure without “offering a clear-cut, above-board, understandable, and effective plan for putting our financial house in order.” Daniel, Cox charged, went into office with a $57 million general fund balance; asked for and obtained $188 million in new taxes; but the state is now more than $75 million in the red; and “the talk in Austin is of another new and additional tax bill of $200 to $250 million.” On top of this, Cox said, Daniel has made the schools “a political football,” has been “about to do something for the teachers” ever since he took office but “has done nothing,” has “mistreated the elder citizens of Texas” in ways he said he will discuss later, and has mishandled lobbyist control, which Cox also promised to discuss later. Daniel has been on the public payroll since 1937, while, Cox said of himself, “I am not a professional politician.” Cox asked for contributions so he can “tell you the complete story” on television. Cox said he had been assured Lyndon Johnson will stay out of the governor’s race. Meanwhile, Atty,. Gen. Will Wilson and challenger Waggoner Carr slapped each other with white gloves while d a r k h or se Bob Looney, Austin lawyer, circled them thoughtfully. All three appeared before COPE’s candidates’ session in Ausno labor issues in my raceI talked to them about basic law enforcement,” said Wilson. “I didn’t tell them anything I haven’t told anyone else,” said Carr. Wilson said that the code of ethics law for state legislators needs to be tightened. When the bill was passed, it would seem, “those who opposed the bill decided it would be best to join up for the bill on the surface but to take bites out of it with amendments so that it lost its meaning,” Wilson said. Announcing Bob Singleton of Houston as his campaign manager, Wilson said the issue in his race is “how vigorous you enforce the law. That always divides some of the folks.” “In this campaign,” he said, “the people will decide if they really want the laws enforced against gambling and loan sharks.” In San Antonio Speaker Carr told the American Legion that the average Texan rays one-third of his total income in various taxes, and “stronger individual citizenship is needed to keep government from becoming too large, burdensome, and wasteful. . . . People must decide whether they are going to pay more and more in Don’t Help or Hurt Lyndon, Labor Says AUSTIN Leaders of union labor in Texas decided not to help or hinder Lyndon Johnson’s presidential camp a i g n, endorsed Gov. Price Daniel and Atty. Gen. Will Wilson for re-election, charged in to help challenger Don Yarborough against Lt. Gov. Ben Ramsey and “insisted on the re-election of Mrs. R. D. Randolph as Democratic national cornmitteewoman from Texas. Except for Jack Cox, Daniel’s challenger; Daniel, who sent a letter; Ramsey, and . W. T. McDonald, Criminal Appeals candidate who was holding court in Bryan, all candidates in contested statewide elections appeared before the 160 members of the Texas Committee on Political Education of AFL-CIO. The candidate turnout was a measure of labor’s growing strength and decreasing controversiality in the state. No one but the COPE members and the candidates knows what happened in the closed sessions preceding labor’s endorsements. Union leaders entering the meeting at the Austin Hotel pledged not to discuss the proceedings outside of the ranks of labor and to ‘abide by the decisions of the i majority” in the caucus \(a pledge limited, said Fred Schmidt of the state labor office, to COPE members present, and not extending The Johnson Matter Texas labor’s resolution on the Johnson matter genially embraced the Democratic nominee, whichever candidate is nominated. All delegates to the Democratic conventions “should be required to pledge their support to the Democratic nominees whoever they may be,” the resolution declared. The Democratic Party, it was said, “is indeed fortunate to have so many able, qualified men from whom to choose its nominees. Within the United States Senate alone, there are ,many great men, all of whom are qualified to hold the nation’s highest office. Should the party choose any one of these, all Democrats could well be proud.” \(Some students of grammatical construction noted that all of these kind remarks applied somewhat indistinctly to “many great National AFL-CIO policy “states that organizations within the AFLCIO should take no position regarding the candidates for party nomination for president and vicepresident,” the resolution. said. “We con-cur in this and accordingly adopt the policy of neither aiding nor hindering the efforts of any candidate for the Democratic nomination . . . We wish them all well and pledge to the one who becomes the nominee our every effort to secure labor’s vigorous support for their election. . . .” Mrs. Randolph was commended “because of her devotion to the party and her untiring efforts in its behalf” and for her “courage WASHINGTON Public power, an issue seldom raised in Texas politics, has suddenly become an immediate problem. The Federal Power Cornmission and Rep. Clark Fisher are lined up against the Texas Rural Electric Cooperatives and other public power advocates on the other. Central Power and Light has offered the government $377,000 a year for “falling water rights” at Diablo dam on the Rio Grande. That is, the company would buy the water falling from the public dam, install generators, and sell the power, produced. This is the Republican-advocated “partnership” program for the development of dams for flood control and conservation, with private firms generating and selling the electric power which results. The rural co-ops are opposed to the plan because they want the right to buy the power wholesale ABILENE The town’s wits and half wits, the city fathers and the city mothers, the preachers and the judges, all of Abilene has been diverted from the gravities of nuclear explosions, mysterious submarines. Cuban-Russian trade agreements, and the teachers’ pay raise by the impacted controversy about the new town of Impact just north of Abilene’s city limits. The morning of Feb. 1, after the deadline for poll tax payments had passed, Dallas Perkins, the advertising man, and Dan Sorrells, his lawyer, presented Judge Reed Ingalsbe a petition for establishing a town to be named Impact on 47 acres in which 300 people live, including 29 poll tax holders, in 55 houses. It became apparent at once that this might be a veiled plan to make Abilene wet by selling beer in Impact. But how to stop the pernicious scheme? Ingalsbe concluded the forms for incorporating had been observed and called the election. But then seven members of the Abilene ministerial alliance met and announced they would personally contact all persons living in Impact. Letters were sent to all ministers in the alliance with members in the area. The Rev. Norman Conner, pastor of the First Christian Church and president of the alliance, said that what the alliance needed was clear heads and calm attitudes. Don Morris, president of Abilene Christian College, said he would help if he could. The Church of Christ announced solid backing for the city’s efforts to stop the vote. Ingalsbe, under the circumstances, called a “public hearing,” and 300 people attended. The city had hired attorney Tom Eplen to handle its case. Eplen said Impact was not a “town or village” as set forth in the laws. There were no schools, churches, or businesses in the area, he said. Sorrells retorted that everything was from the government and believe that the government itself should generate and sell the power to amortite other costs of the dam. Power sold from such dams is, in itself, profitable. The House foreign affairs subcommittee is now holding hearings on the matter. A Federal Power Cmsn. official, Frank L. WeaVer of the river basin studies section, said to this group that Rio Grande water at the Diablo \(Amenough to justify a governmentowned power plant there. But, he said, there was enough power potential to make it worthwhile for a private company to harness and sell the energy. The difference, hC said, was that such a firm as CP&L of Corpus Christi has a reserve of standby power over South Texas should the water at the dam fall low. Col. L. M. Hewitt, U.S. member of the U.S.-Mexican Boundary and Water Cmsn., told the committee \(Continued on Page 2 legal. A city employee said he saw some mud puddles in the area, intimating it might flood over. He said he asked residents if they wanted “to live in a wet area.” “I take it by ‘wet’ you did not mean the flood area,” Sorrells grinned; some of the spectators applauded. At 9:30 the next day, Ingalsbe changed his mind and revoked his approval of the election. He said the area does not have the visible means of support to function as a city. An hour later the city fathers met at the Petroleum Club to discuss annexing the area; at 1:30 that afternoon they annexed not only Impact, but other nearby areas that might be incorporated. Mayor George :Minter said the commissioners would have liked to study the matter, but due to “recent developments,” they wanted to act at once. Undaunted, Perkins and Sorrells announced they would go ahead with the election. Although the Abilene Reporter-News had run a four-column picture of one signer for the election who said he wanted to withdraw from the matter, and reported “rumors” that 10 others of the 29 poll tax holders in the area had changed their minds; although presumably the ministers did their best; and although the election had been revoked, the voting proceeded peacefully at election judge Dallas Perkins’s home, and the results were 27 to 0 for incorporation. If Ingalsbe refused to count the votes, Sorrells was going to district court to force him to count them. “I’m very pleased with the results,” Perkins said after the polls closed at 7 p.m. and the 27 votes were counted. “It shows the unanimity of the inhabitants of Impact. I thought it was a very good t urnout .” Abilene’s Folly